Instrument control knobs made of homogeneous material and used in portable instruments or devices (e.g., a radio) may bend or break the shafts that they are attached to when they impact against some rigid object. Moreover, such homogeneous knobs do not allow the designer of the instruments or devices on which the knob is used to design color features into those instruments or devices without painting the color features on the knob or without using a "multiple-shot" molding process.